Eisriesenwelt
Interesting facts
- Explorer Alexander von Mรถrk was the first to pass the Sturmsee, a then-flooded passage, and found beyond it the vast hall later named after him.
- In 1913 von Mรถrk, Erwin Angermayer and Hermann Rihl became the first to climb the Great Ice Wall, the steepest part of the frozen slope.
- Posselt marked the point where he turned back with a black cross on the rock, still known as the Posselt Cross.
- Von Mรถrk was killed in the First World War at the age of 27, and his urn rests above a passage inside the cave.
- Locals long knew of the cave but refused to go in, believing its mouth to be an entrance to hell.
- The entrance lies at about 1,640 metres; the cave's far end, called the New World, sits slightly lower, at roughly 1,595 metres.
- Beyond the ice, the largest passage is Midgard, a gallery between 8 and 30 metres wide from which branches lead off in every direction.
- Each summer some 5 to 10 centimetres of floor ice melts, but spring meltwater refreezes and replaces it, so overall the ice slowly grows.
- Guides light the ice figures with bursts of magnesium light, while visitors carry lamps modelled on old carbide lamps.
- A cable car built in 1955 cut the climb toward the cave from about 90 minutes to a few minutes.
Why it is worth it
In 1879, a Salzburg naturalist named Anton von Posselt-Czorich became the first documented person to enter this cave above the Salzach valley. He got about 200 metres in, by torchlight, before turning back โ not because the passage stopped, but because what lay ahead unsettled him enough that he wrote of fearing he'd found an entrance to the underworld. It's easy to see why: the cave breathes. Cold, dense winter air sinks into the mountain and pools in its vast chambers, and when warmer, moisture-laden air meets it in spring and summer, that moisture freezes on contact โ not from an ancient glacier dragged inside, but built up season after season, meltwater by meltwater, for roughly a thousand years in the oldest layers.
It took another cave explorer, Alexander von Mรถrk, to actually open the system up, starting around 1912 and continuing until 1920. Von Mรถrk didn't survive to see tourism take hold: he was killed in the First World War, and in keeping with a wish he'd made before dying, his ashes were interred inside the cave itself, in a chamber that still bears his name. Visitors on the standard route are handed carbide-style lamps in an echo of the original exploration lighting, before continuing on secured pathways.
What makes Eisriesenwelt unusual even among ice caves is scale paired with restraint: the full cave system runs some 42 kilometres into the Hochkogel massif, making it one of the longest ice caves known anywhere, yet only the first two kilometres โ and only the ice-filled section nearest the entrance โ are open to visitors at all. Past that point, the cave stays dry rock, because the ice only forms where the airflow and temperature happen to align. It's less a frozen cavern than a very specific weather system trapped underground.
Best time to visit
The ice formations are typically most extensive in late spring and early summer, before the following winter's fresh airflow rebuilds them; the cave itself is only accessible roughly from May to October.
Getting there
35 km from Salzburg. Salzburg Airport (SZG) is about 35 km away.
Plan your visit
Visit
| Hours | โ |
| Price | โper OpenStreetMap |
| Season | โ |
Getting there
| Parking | โ |
Practical information
| Stroller | โ |
| Wheelchair | โ |
| Dog | โ |
| In the rain | โ |
Nearby places
- Liechtensteinklamm 21.3 km ยท gorge
- Obersee 15.2 km ยท lake
- St. Bartholomew's Church, Berchtesgaden 17.0 km ยท pilgrimage-site
- Vorderer Gosausee 23.9 km ยท lake
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Eisriesenwelt is a natural limestone and ice cave located in Werfen, Austria, about 40ย km south of Salzburg. The cave is inside the Hochkogel mountain in the Tennengebirge section of the Alps. It is the largest ice cave in the world, extending more than 42ย km and visited by about 200,000 tourists every year.
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